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Corcoran High School graduate Ryan Sprague is a playwright in New York City. His next project is a film adaptation of his Hurricane Katrina-inspired play "Reach."
(Courtesy Jade Bartlett- Southern Fried Photography)

Syracuse native Ryan Sprague is plotting to make the move from stage to screen with his next project.

Sprague's SALT Award-nominated play "Reach" is being adapted into a feature film called "Reverie Lane." In an email interview, he says his first imagined it as a theater production with just two characters, but was excited to tackle the challenge of expanding it for a movie.

View full size"Reverie Lane," written by Syracuse native Ryan Sprague, is an independent film that plans to shoot this year.Couresy Stephen Folker

"Film is about action, and showing instead of telling," Sprague said. "Therefore I had to cut back a lot of the dialogue in the script and replace it with action. The liberating aspect to the film medium is also being able to open up the world of the story... It was very exciting to find new material in the movie that I never knew existed."

Like the play, "Reverie Lane" will focus on a woman whose ex-boyfriend re-enters her life while her husband, a New Orleans police officer, is in a coma after a failed rescue attempt during Hurricane Katrina.

"I was on an educational acting tour a year after Hurricane Katrina," Sprague explained of the inspiration. "The closer we got to [New Orleans], the more devastation I witnessed. Empty and barren schools, abandoned vehicles too heavy to transport elsewhere, and trees literally ripped from the earth and broken like twigs."

"[Residents] remained hopeful that things would get better, but they all kept saying the same thing to me: 'It's like people have forgotten about us and its only been a year.' That stuck with me, and fueled my interest in writing the story of a forgotten city."

Sprague says the movie will be directed by Iowa filmmaker Stephen Folker and stars Nicholas Westemeyer and Jennifer Onvie. Westemeyer, an actor and teacher in New York City, told Sprague he connected with the tale after he lost one of his students during Hurricane Sandy.

"We will be dedicating the film to this student and his family in hopes that it will bring even a small amount of closure to them," Sprague said.

Season 12 "American Idol" semi-finalist Nick Boddington is writing an original song for the movie, highlighting a soundtrack filled with indie artists.

A Kickstarter has been launched to help raise funds for the independent film to be shot later this year in Davenport, Iowa. As of Tuesday, $1,750 has been pledged towards a $7,000 goal that must be reached by June 30.

People who contribute to "Reverie Lane: The Movie," will be eligible for signed props and posters, art inspired by the movie, and a final cut of the film in either digital or DVD
format. Those who back the project with $250 or more will also receive a film credit.

Sprague, who graduated from Corcoran High School in 2002 and SUNY Oswego in 2006, plans to submit the film upon completion to New York and international film festivals as well as host a screening in his hometown next year.

"None of this would have been possible without influential teachers at Corcoran High School, SUNY Oswego, and the theatre community of Syracuse," Sprague said in a press release. "I never saw myself telling stories that people would want to hear and see, but life is funny that way... and that's exactly the story we are trying to tell with Reverie Lane."